At 9:00am today Elvis left the building headed for a great
adventure.
On the train trip to Washington dc I am struck with a couple of awesomenesses (is that a real
word?). First the fact that when spring finally
decides to show itself, it does it with a vengeance. Areas that were previously covered with snow
and barren of any life signs are now covered with grasses, crops working their
way into the sun and new born calves bound closely their mother cows. This is a great beginning for our trip.
The second awesome is that the reality of this trip is
settling in. I have realized that we
will traveling in hours what would have taken days or weeks not too long
ago. I have technology that permits
instant communications with anyone anywhere.
My first airplane trip was about 45 years ago. It was on a propeller driven aircraft whose
tail was lower than the rest of the plane (tail dragger). There was no jet way, no security, just an
agent taking tickets and motioning us to walk out on to the tarmac and up the
stairs. Today we checked in, removed
various pieces of clothing, walked through an x-ray machine, boarded a subway
train and waited in a well fitted traveler’s lounge that overlooked a replica
of United Technologies bicycle powered
aircraft. Things are different today.
In today’s New York Times there is an article on the decline
of the middle class in America. It posits there is a decline in the wealth of
the American middle class when compared to other countries. From my perspective as a traveler this is not
true at this airport. The number of
families with children traveling is great.
When our kids were young we never traveled by air; vacations were car
trips because Having made several trips across the USA by car, that may be
reversed today.
There are still a lot of business men, women too but not as
many, filling the planes, but a growing group of young millenials are also traveling,
either in pairs or alone. Our international
flight check in had three families with
children and twice as many young, I can
use that word since I have children who are older than any of these, travelers.
As I type this I can see a large group
of teenagers being herded by a couple of harried looking adults toward their
departure gate. My granddaughters have
taken group trips that in earlier eras would never have happened. Things are different today and they are
great.
No comments:
Post a Comment